A full moon sets in the west and the balcony bears evidence of a heavy storm last night, outcome of yesterday’s heat wave. This dawn it’s a reasonable 59, humid and clearing.
The birds get a slow start today: less light? wet plumage? Not the storm-proof American Robins, of course, but others, such as European Starlings, are running five to ten minutes late. The sky gets active, though, once the Common Grackles arrive at 6:43 AM and begin their creaky morning rituals, swooping back and forth between the tops of the tallest trees.
The eastern sky has splotches of plum and other off-red hues, backdrop for the first Harley of the day, revving its engine east down 10th Street. It’s THAT time of year again: the VFW and beyond that, the Park-and-Ride, seem to be magnets during motorcycle season, with at times up to a dozen riders congregating, creating a deafening roar that can bury all other local sounds, even the rumble of the loudest Norfolk Southern freight trains.
At 6:47, a particularly acrobatic pair of House Finches chases across the sky, twirling and diving and making abrupt, 90-degree turns, etching an intricate sigil across Bald Eagle Mountain.
Talking Turkey
Around 7:20, I bid goodbye to Paola, who commutes to nursing classes at Penn State Altoona every day. Just as I return to the balcony, I am aware of a massive shape passing over my head and diving toward the confluence. My search image is scrambled: not a raven; not a raptor; not a duck. I glass it in time to realize it’s a Wild Turkey, and there’s a second to its right. Both are toms, and they hit the ground somewhere on the far bank of the Little Juniata under the interstate, and are lost to sight.
I call Paola to tell her what she missed, and she wonders whether these two are friends to the mashed one she spotted on Tuesday at Exit 48 not far away. Another question on our minds is where these two came from. I’ve seen turkeys fly across open space, before—for example, they sometimes cross from Bald Eagle to Brush mountain in the Gap this way, avoiding railroad, river, and highway. But here in the Borough? Birds of the World tells me that turkeys can fly up to about a mile in a single flight, which means they could have come from as far as the hills beyond the hospital, west of town. More likely, though, they cruised down from Cemetery Hill about a half-mile away. The top of that limestone hill in the middle of town is 1226 feet above sea level, and the confluence is 878 feet.
I go back to my pacing. At 7:26, a Killdeer calls repeatedly from the grassy area beyond the interstate, far enough away that it is mixed with the sounds of its starling imitators that crown the poplar in-between. Around the half-hour mark, a pair of amorous Mourning Doves alights in the dead ash top at my 12, an improbable gathering spot for numerous species around here. The male puffs out the feathers on his neck and hops closer to the female, then they fly off north in meandering fashion.
I’m wondering where the turkeys went. I scan what I can see of the tracks, but they’re long gone. Then it hits me: perhaps they are on their way to that same grassy shale slope above Exit 48, covered in crown vetch, where I’ve been able to spot White-tailed Deer from my balcony, about 800 feet south of my balcony. I scan what I can see of it, and there they are.
They disappear downslope, and I am left wondering whether they had any prior association with the highway casualty, or if this is all a coincidence. I would never have imagined turkeys access this area from across town in this fashion; to get to it, one has to not only get over the buildings but also under the interstate, across the river, and over the tracks. I would have assumed they were from the Sinking Valley crowd that, like the White-tailed Deer, ascend to Plummer’s Hollow in certain seasons, crossing two ridges to get to the interstate edges without having to cross all those obstacle, or fly over any rooftops.
Whatever the case, this is all a clear sign that we have to take part in the upcoming Earth Week Birding Classic in the new stationary-count ‘Wild Turkey’ (‘big it’) category. Before all this happened, I had been planning to sit on our balcony for an entire day on Sunday, April 16; it’s a fundraising project for our local Juniata Valley Audubon Society, so you’ll be getting more details next week. All we need now is a team name.
Up in the Air
The day never warms very much, but the cloud cover and occasional updrafts from storms that don’t happen provides the energy needed for Rock Pigeons and the local raven-and-raptor crowd (99% Turkey Vulture) to stay up and about much of the time. The winds out of the west aren’t good for long-distance raptor migration, however. Some time after 11, a pair of Herring Gulls comes up over Sapsucker Ridge from the south somewhere, pushed by local winds from a growing storm, and disappears northward. This is the first I’ve seen the species since the middle of winter.
The local Red-tailed Hawks have a banner day. At one point, one is hovering motionless in one of its favorite spots above the interstate, slightly above and to the west of Sapsucker Ridge a half-mile from me, facing west. What I take to be its mate flies up from the ridge and joins it, hovering behind and slightly below, then after a minute or so, it turns around and heads back to the ridge. The first one then heads south to find another place to hover. Not too much later, both reappear over the Gap, touching wings, then one begins a series of steep dives, hurtling toward the earth then pulling up, and repeating this three times until the last full-tilt dive takes it out of sight behind Bald Eagle Mountain.
The junkyard raven and its mate are similarly buoyant today, performing all sorts of acrobat stunts, tumbling across space, and not infrequently joining up with circling masses of vultures. It’s impossible to tell how many Turkey Vultures are about, but they form up into groups suddenly, appearing over Bald Eagle Mountain and skimming its top, then heading into the Gap and circling there, then up into Plummer’s Hollow, later popping up over Sapsucker Ridge in front of me, then heading south along the ridge. This repeats going the other direction 20 minutes later, or they disappear out into Sinking Valley, or west over Tyrone. Occasionally, two, three, or up to six Black Vultures, flapping delicately, appear from the east; I can’t make out whether it’s the same half-dozen, or different individuals each time.
The Cooper’s Hawk is, as usual, the terror of the lowlands. It has taken to crossing from Bald Eagle to Brush mountain, then skimming the trees above the river. Then it rips across north again, and later repeats the process.
Roughies Return
In the evening, I take a quick hike to the pond before running up to get the NFC recordings. Just a Canada Goose and two Mallards, but as I’m leaving, a dozen Northern Rough-winged Swallows show up, calling and circling several times over the water before heading to the pastures above. Earlier, I watched a Tree Swallow from the balcony; now, we’re just missing the world’s most ubiquitous species, the Barn Swallow (the other three - Cliff, Bank, and Purple Martin — will be here by May). I call it ‘most ubiquitous’ because it is the only bird species recorded on all continents, even Antarctica.
Night Flights
Speaking of NFCs, I’m finally caught up on the checklists. Here are some of my favorites:
Wilson’s Snipe. This 11:41 PM winnow from March 30 had me stumped (I was thinking owl), but thanks to the expertise of NFC guru Joe Gyekis, I was able to finally snag a species—number 212 overall for the hotspot—I’ve been trying to detect here for years. Our fields aren’t marshy enough for it, or perhaps they’re just too overrun with American Woodcock. Whatever the case, given the sensitivity of the microphone, this could be an individual moving overhead, or perhaps, just perhaps, a brief terrestrial visit.
Virginia Rail. The microphone recorded the first of this common night-migrating marsh bird at 9:53 PM on March 31. It’s a bit early for the species, so eBird marked it as ‘Rare,’ but this happens a lot in the world of nocturnal flight calls.
American Bittern. On April 3 at 4:56 AM, the season’s first went over. Like the rail, this species is not uncommon in night flight, but before I erected the microphone, we had never detected it here. Last year, a gray squirrel repeatedly chewed the antenna wire apart, so I missed almost all of April, when bittern migration is in full swing. This year, the first spring I will have a complete set of recordings, I hope to gain an idea of its true numbers.
Long-tailed Duck. Speaking of true numbers, this extremely vocal species turned out to be the second most-abundant apparition on my spectrum in March, after the Tundra Swan. LTDUs turned up in late February and had some good nights in early March, then migrated over by the hundreds (at least) in late March. They tend to like the time right around midnight: between 11:20 PM on March 30 and 1:15 AM on the 31st, for example, 11 flocks went over.
Savannah Sparrow. Here is a species we almost never see on the property; its true abundance, like other grassland sparrows, is made known through its propensity for nocturnal migration. The night of April 3/4 was the first major sparrow flight; identifiable species included Field, Savannah, Chipping, Song, and Vesper. All have ‘seeps’ up around 7 kHz and above, lasting around 100 milliseconds. Grasshopper Sparrow will also soon be on the boards—common in night flight, but never recorded on the ground in Plummer’s Hollow. The big goal this year is Henslow’s Sparrow, which nests not far from here, and is occasionally picked up by NFC microphones. The NFC is unmistakable, and it would be new for the hotspot.
These and other NFCs put the Plummer’s Hollow 200 at 97 species. As I write this, I have two more nights of NFC backlog, and a weekend ahead where several new diurnal species will turn up. Plummer’s Hollow’s Big Year is definitely kicking into high gear!